Legal Assistance for Crime Victims

OVC TTAC offers a variety of training and technical assistance resources related to legal assistance for crime victims. We work collaboratively with national experts to offer training and technical assistance opportunities to the legal community and provide attorneys across the country with the tools they need to increase their knowledge base about crime victim issues and increase their capacity to provide pro bono or no-cost legal representation to crime victims.

If you are an attorney or member of a legal organization working with crime victims and need technical assistance, please contact OVC TTAC at legalassistance@ovcttac.org. Follow the links below for some of the ways in which we offer support.

Stay in Touch

OVC TTAC is partnering with national experts to offer training opportunities to the legal community. The trainings provide attorneys across the country with the tools needed to increase their knowledge base about crime victim issues and increase their capacity to provide pro bono or no-cost legal representation to crime victims. OVC TTAC offers Webinars, Online Training options, and Training options.

Campus Sexual Assault Webinars

Webinar series on campus sexual assault for state and local sexual assault coalitions and programs throughout the country.

Whether it is a single incident or an ongoing pattern of abuse, sexual assault can undermine a victim's physical and emotional safety. Effective safety plans empower victims and can help them reclaim a sense of safety and security. No Contact Orders (NCOs) can be a key piece of a survivor's safety plan and, when implemented and enforced in conjunction with schedule mapping, are invaluable tools. This session addresses the unique challenges of creating a safety plan that meets the specific needs of victims in a campus environment, explores how safety planning for sexual violence can be different than safety planning for domestic violence, and discusses strategies for protecting victim privacy and safety.

Civil legal advocacy and representation are critical needs for campus sexual assault victims who report violence to their institutions. After completing this webinar, participants will be able to identify some of the unique issues campus victims of sexual assault face and better understand what lawyers can do to access civil remedies to promote healing and recovery. This webinar addresses victims' rights and remedies related to their rights under Title IX, including safety, accommodation, and judicial process; and discusses eligibility and strategies for filing a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights.

Title IX requires that "upon notice of gender-based harassment that creates a hostile environment, an institution must take immediate action to eliminate the harassment, prevent its recurrence, and address its effects." In order to remedy the hostile environment, campuses should provide safety and remedial measures and the option to participate in their resolution/conduct process. This session provides detailed, practical tips on where to begin with a new campus case, how to assist a survivor with obtaining the safety and remedial measures they need, and how to assist a survivor throughout all stages of the resolution process.

This session addresses the unique challenges and opportunities inherent in creating a safety plan that meets the specific needs of victims in a campus environment; explores how safety planning for campus victims/survivors may differ from safety planning for domestic violence victims; and discusses strategies for protecting victim privacy, discussing emotional safety, and providing survivor-centered safety planning.

Two federal laws—the Jeanne Clery Act and Title IX—influence campus prevention and response to sexual violence. This webinar highlights how the laws intersect regarding requirements, resources, and options available to campus survivors.

Requirements under the federal Clery Act provide a foundation for an institution's campus safety and security policies. The Act offers critical rights and options to survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking. This session provides an overview of the Clery Act's requirements and how the Act influences on- and off-campus response and resources.

Archived Webinars

The following Webinars are pre-recorded and available to view at your convenience.

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Title

Length

Training Materials

A High Wire Act: Advocating for Victims While Avoiding the Unlawful Practice of LawShow Summary

This webinar is the second in a three-part series designed to enhance the ability of attorneys to provide effective legal representation to child-victims regarding their rights in criminal cases. This session provides concrete strategies for effectively communicating with and representing child-victims across the age spectrum.

Effective Legal Representation of Child Victims: What Every Lawyer Should Know About the Impact of TraumaShow Summary

This session provides an overview of the neurobiology of trauma and its unique impact on child victims. Building on this information, presenters will provide some strategies to help facilitate effective communication with clients who are child victims.

This session, designed for advocates, is an overview of victims' rights laws, and an identification of common issues that victims face as they are forced to navigate the criminal justice system. Rebecca Khalil, NCVLI Staff Attorney, and Karla Salp, a victim advocate, discuss the state of victims' rights laws nationally, identify the most common stages in a criminal proceeding where victims' rights are at risk, discuss how advocates can protect these rights without crossing the line into unlawful practice of law, and explore how advocates and attorneys can best work together to enforce and advance victims' rights.

This session, designed for attorneys representing victims, is an overview of victims' rights laws, and an identification of common issues that victims face as they are forced to navigate the criminal justice system. Meg Garvin, NCVLI Executive Director, and Rebecca Khalil, NCVLI Staff Attorney, discuss the state of victims' rights laws nationally, identify the most common stages in a criminal proceeding where victims' rights are at risk, and target how system-based and community-based victim advocates can protect these rights.

Neurobiology of Trauma: What Every Practitioner Needs To KnowShow Summary

Regardless of whether an attorney practices criminal law, family law, employment law, tort law, or wills and estates, (s)he will likely encounter clients with a trauma history, and advocates in the justice system will undoubtedly encounter these same individuals. This session explains the brain's response to trauma such that participants will gain a better understanding of the neurobiology of trauma, and why their clients may be ambivalent about participating in the justice system.

This session provides an overview of what rights exist for victims in the military, focusing on standing, how to assert rights, and the latest appellate practice. The session provides an overview of the Air Force's Special Victim Counsel Program, which was the first program in the military to provide counsel to sexual assault victims. The targeted audience for this session includes military counsel and civilian attorneys working with crime victims.

Attacks on victim privacy happen every day in the form of subpoenas for victim records, requests for a pretrial interviews, and disclosure of a victim's name in open court. Because privacy is critical to victims' recovery and access to justice, protecting privacy must be a key strategy of the victims' rights movement. This session discusses methods of protecting victim privacy, ranging from securing use of pseudonyms to quashing subpoenas, to enhance the practitioner's ability to protect victim privacy.

Year in Review: Top Victims' Rights from the Last 12 MonthsShow Summary

This interactive Web-based training program for legal aid and civil attorneys has four modules that offer a variety of information, tools, and resources to identify and respond to elder abuse, including Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, Financial Fraud and Exploitation, Practical and Ethical Strategies, and What Lawyers Need to Know.Learn More

Training

This training provides a comprehensive overview of crime victims' rights and the advocate's role in enforcing those rights. In this interactive training you will analyze a hypothetical case scenario and actively explore how victims' rights can be exercised during pretrial proceedings, during trial, and in relation to sentencing, parole, and other post trial proceedings. Participants will develop an individual action plan for applying the new information to their own organizations so that victims will better understand their legal rights and the actions they can take to enforce those rights. Learn More

VictimLaw
VictimLaw is a user-friendly database of victims' rights laws. This is a useful tool for service providers and victims to find information on victims' rights laws in their jurisdiction.

The Office for Victims of Crime Training and Technical Assistance Center is a component of the Office for Victims of Crime,
Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice.

OVC TTAC neither endorses, has any responsibility for, nor exercises any control over the organizations'
views or the accuracy of the information contained in those pages outside of OVC TTAC's website.